Madonna has vowed to toughen up as a mother after seeing pictures of her daughter Lourdes Leon smoking a cigarette. The 15-year-old was caught lighting up while she loitered around with male friends in New York last month. The legal age for smoking in America is 18. When asked how she reacted, Madonna, 53, admitted she ‘wasn’t very happy.’ While she considers herself a disciplinarian, she has decided to come down harder on her children. ‘I’m probably not as tough as I should be,’ she tells the Today show. ‘I think I need to be maybe tougher.’ ‘Every day is a negotiation, but cigarette smoking I’m not very fond of,’ she added. Madonna, who does not smoke, puffs on a cigarette in her recent video for Girl Gone Bad. She said it was ‘was just a prop’ and it didn’t set a bad example, saying ‘[Lourdes] doesn’t get that from me’. But she admits parenting is a challenge. ‘To be a single mother of four and to work as much as I do, with my life in a kind of metaphorical fish bowl, it’s pretty challenging. But so far I’ve survived with sanity and humour intact.’

Naturally, we would expect Madonna to say that she is unhappy with her daughter’s smoking … but I did actually laugh out loud when she says in this interview, “I don’t approve of anyone smoking cigarettes”. It’s a bit of a mixed message to glamorize smoking in photos and music videos and then to say, I don’t approve of smoking by anyone. BUT, that is beside the point. As I mentioned before, I imagine that it is difficult to raise a teenager no matter who you are … let alone a single, working mom. No one is perfect and this smoking incident will not be the last of Madonna’s parenting woes. Kids will be kids. Parents do their best. Life goes on. That said … life has a much higher chance of going on longer if folks don’t smoke :)

yeah, she definitely glamorizes it! and using cigarettes as a prop is EXACTLY what teenagers are doing. (i know because i did the same thing… but fortunately hated it and didn’t get addicted so it was short-lived.) so maybe lourdes has just taken mama’s lessons in theatricality to heart.

there’s not a lot of options for lourdes if she wants to rebel against her mom, but i hope she makes it out of her teens without getting addicted to things that can kill her!

Krissy

Wow, I thought this was a really insightful point. ” using cigarettes as a prop is EXACTLY what teenagers are doing”

Well said!

muchacha

Trent you are so right about the mixed message and thank you for pointing out her hypocrisy. We can’t have it both ways. How can she chastise her child when she is promoting smoking herself in her videos?

beth

Trent you are right about the mixed message. Madonna has portrayed smoking as glamorous, mysterious and sexy for her entire career. Besides, she is glamorous, mysteriaous and sexy without it. I started smoking because I bought into those types of images and it took me well over a decade to truly quit.

Ariel

that’s the begginig of the end of lola’s material girl brand

Donny

That’s a bit dramatic. The Material Girl brand will not end because Lola smoked a cigarette. People will forget about that in a matter of weeks. If it ends, it won’t be because she was “caught” smoking.

yo!

Do as I say, Not as I do

Kelly

It’s a prop, for a video, for entertaiment purposes. In a more extreme comparison, people are killing people in movies too, but intelligent human beings don’t see that as okay. She doesn’t actualy smoke so I don’t think she is a hypocrite. Just my 2 cents.

Ben@pr

Glamorizing smoking cigarettes or not everybody knows it kills. So if Madonna appears in a video eating deep-fried butter everybody will do so in a daily basis? People are smarter than that including teenagers.

Jane

if i am not mistaken madonna was a smoker – just watch truth or dare…or am i wrong?